


Take Me Back To The Night We Met

by valeskaisms



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Barbara plays matchmaker, Bisexual Male Character, Denial, Developing Relationship, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Hurt, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Nygmobblepot, Past Relationship(s), Pining, Songfic, Sort Of, aka I’m honestly not sure where in the series this would fit, barbara is only slightly mentioned, but it’s after Isabella’s death, hand holding, kind of, oswald and ed make up, vague timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 12:35:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15751770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valeskaisms/pseuds/valeskaisms
Summary: A nygmobblepot song fic to The Night We Met by Lord Huron.





	Take Me Back To The Night We Met

_I am not the only traveller who has not repaid his debt._

Edward often considers the fact that it wouldn’t exactly be false to say that Oswald sort of owed him for all he did for him. He let Oswald stay with him for so long as he recuperated (as much as he did enjoy the company, it was something he didn’t HAVE to do), and he believed, at least, that Oswald’s mayoral campaign would not have ran as smoothly as it did without him. That was only the start of the one hundred million things that Edward had done for Oswald. Ed had done so much for his friend. He never expected anything in return, of course, because it was all in the name of friendship, but he most definitely thought he deserved a lot more than he got — another corpse belonging to a woman he loved. Friendship, huh? It seemed to him that Oswald had thought little of such a word and had thought of it as just that — a word: flimsy, paper-thin and meaningless. Thrown away all because of a beautiful woman. Oh, Isabella. He wasn’t sure, when he thought about it, that he had really loved her, or if it was just that she made him think fondly about Miss Kringle, but what mattered was that she was dead, and so he had little more time to dwell on his true feelings for her. This time it wasn’t his fault. It was Oswald’s. After all Ed had done, this was how his supposed friend would repay him? He felt betrayed, naturally. But there was also something else, lingering, hiding behind his ribcage, playing peekaboo from within that beating organ in the centre of his chest. Of course, Ed was smart enough to know that love and the heart actually had nothing to do with each other, but still, the sentiment of the symbolism was nice, so he let that thought slip through without interrupting himself. The feeling was strange, and sickeningly sweet, like crushed violets swirled into a pool of honey. It was as of part of him was almost relieved that Isabella was no longer around. As if part of him almost found the way that Oswald had torn apart any competition endearing. And that . . that was the worst feeling of it all. It made him angry, which he directed at Oswald rather than himself. Oswald still owes him, he decided. Just in a different way. Oswald owes him revenge. That’s Oswald’s debt to Ed after all of this, and one day soon, Edward is going to collect.

_I’ve been searching for a trail to follow again._

When Isabella was removed — to put it politely — from Edward’s life, Oswald thought that everything would get better. That maybe he could have the happiness he deserved for once, and that he wouldn’t have to spend another night alone on top of the many years of feeling utterly lonely. He was wrong. After Isabella’s death — or, more specifically, after Edward found out Oswald was to blame for it — everything got much, much worse. He lost everything, and became more isolated than ever. Oswald hadn’t realised how dependant he had become on Ed’s presence. He had been hooked, addicted, like morphine secretly and slowly injecting itself into his veins against his will, flowing through his bloodstream before he could even stop it, let alone realise. Now, he was left with withdrawals in the form of a numb sadness and a ball of nausea endlessly twisting and knotting just below his stomach. Oswald had no idea what he was meant to do now. It felt like he had no purpose, no reason for anything. No motivation. Sure, it felt nice to climb to the top, especially from the humble beginnings that he started with. But what’s the point of all of this if he will inevitably end up alone? What’s the point of owning Gotham if there is nobody to share it with? Many people believe that independence is the key to success, and that being alone in these ventures is the only way. That it’s better than having to share the prize. For Oswald, that isn’t true. As much as he wishes and wishes for it to apply to him, it simply doesn’t work. Oswald Cobblepot is not the kind of man who can cope with loneliness well, or, indeed, cope with it at all. So lately all he’s felt is lost. He had a path to follow, once. He may have taken diversions, yes, and the destination may have changed a good hundred times, but he still always kept to a path. It was safer, more secure to do that. To know that something was behind him and ahead of him and that he was heading to something, at least. That he wasn’t lost in the middle of nowhere. That he wouldn’t end up walking around in circles, never ending up anywhere. That’s how it felt right now. Edward had walked the path with him, for a while, and when Edward left the path he tried to follow, and now that dirt track was nowhere to be found. In fact, he had no idea where he was going, and was starting to lose grasp of where he had been coming from. Oswald is afraid that he may be lost this way for ever. 

_I had all and then most of you, some and now none of you._

Something inside of both of them ached, in different ways, but — at the very core — for the same reason. Oswald was very aware of it, which only seemed to worsen the pain. Ed, on the other hand, was very much in denial, as always. He thought that it would soothe the pain if he could pretend it didn’t exist. Yet, he found, it ended up making him agonise over it further, similarly to Oswald’s feelings of hurt. They were both pining, over all. It’s just that Ed wouldn’t admit it to himself, nor anyone else. And Oswald had unfortunately admitted it too openly. Both men seemed to be drowning in the murky, swirling depths of syrupy melancholia, being slowly dragged under. Oswald screaming for help so loudly that his lungs burns and his voice no longer works; reaching out for Ed a forever after he has silently floated away. Edward refusing to even open his mouth and utter a single word, scared to damage his pride and his ego, even more scared to unearth the insecurities nestling just a layer or two underneath. It seemed like mere days ago (although many, many long months had passed) they were content, and back then they had each other — even if it was only in the platonic way. But now . . Now, they were alone again, two separate entities, yet still somehow intertwined. It was inevitable that it would sting. The agony of it all was unavoidable, really. They hadn’t just lost a friend. They had lost so much more than that. Their emotional connection had been the deepest that either man had ever felt. The absence of it made Oswald and Edward respectively each have their own gaping crater left within them. Hollow. Empty. Ed tries to fill the emptiness with distractions, but these run right out of the hole left in him like water, leaving him empty once again in an instant. He wants the crater to be filled, so it can almost disappear, and he can pretend that it never existed. Oswald, however, simply boards up the hollow in his chest with wooden planks and half-hammered nails, in fear that something else may enter and worsen the damage. They had once been so close. But they never could have been truly happy like that, not in the long term. It never would have been quite enough. Yet, regret still hangs heavy in the air as they love their separate lives. The sting of having drifted so far apart is certainly sharp. 

_Take me back to the night we met._

Both of them can remember their first encounter vividly, as if it had occurred only mere hours ago, although it seemed to be tinged with a rosy haze upon remembrance. Something that, if it were looked at hard enough, scrutinised enough, could be recognised as the filter that infatuation seems to place over happy memories. The memories are bittersweet, and wash an acrid taste up both men’s throats each time they think of it. Ed often finds that thinking of meeting Oswald is not voluntary. He tries to avoid it at all costs, but sometimes the memory sneaks up on him and pounces like a wild cat, entrapping him and invading his senses, until he feels as though he’s trapped in a semi-lucid daydream. He’s come to get used to the accompanying dull ache of his brain. Oswald has a similarly unpleasant reaction when he sees flashes of that past event in his head. It gives him great grief, as if he is mourning at a funeral, and an intense pain tugs at every fibre of his being. Oswald has always been one to avoid un-necessary pain (he has enough of it with his damn leg) but somehow, when it comes to this, he’s suddenly transformed into a masochist, and all he craves is the burn that the sweet memory gives him, because it’s all he has left of Ed now. Oswald wishes he could turn back time, and do things differently. He wishes he could go back to the first day that he ever met Ed, and just kiss him right there, or at least make a move, before Edward even started with Kringle or Isabella, and before everything got ruined, and before every chance of their happiness disappeared. Ed sometimes wishes that he could go back to that day too, but just to avoid meeting Oswald altogether, because then he could have avoided the hurt, and all these strange feelings, and he wouldn’t have to ever confront the fact that he never loved Kristen or Isabella as intensely as he loved — loves — Oswald. Maybe he would’ve never known that, and he wouldn’t have to feel double the pain just to keep up the denial. Yet unfortunately, they’re stuck with the less than ideal (that’s a huge understatement) reality of the present, and they’re both too stubborn and too hurt to do anything about it. So they sit miles apart in separate places, the same sadness slowly bleeding out of them in disgustingly warm, thick waves, metaphorical yet able to felt all the same, the last remaining energy ebbing from their bodies until they are numb and lifeless. Without each other, they have been reduced to almost nothing, a hollow shell, a carcass. Even when they first met, something within the both of them, hidden deep inside of them, knew that they would greatly mean something to each other, and that knowledge has been niggling at the back of their minds ever since. Teasing them, as if to say ‘I told you so’. They should’ve payed attention to the glaring warning signs, really. There are so many things that they ‘should’ve’ done. None of that can help them now.

_I don’t know what I’m supposed to do._

Oswald has been hurt before, but not like this. He’s never really been in love before, and so he’s never really had his heart broken. This sensation is new to him. So he has no idea what to do about it. He does nothing, except weep and mourn for the loss of Ed’s presence. All of this is pretty new for Edward, too. Edward Nygma is not the kind of guy that people fight for. He’s not the kind of guy who somebody would kill out of jealousy for. At least, so he thought. Yet here he is, in that very situation, and he’s more mad at himself than he is at Oswald, and he doesn’t understand, because he thought he loved Isabella but her death only made him realise that it was always Oswald, and that makes him want to light himself on fire. He doesn’t do that, as much as he feels like doing so. Instead, he just ends up trying to find any distractions he can, and sulking in the tiny breaks he gives himself in between. This is no way to fix anything, of course. Luckily, both men know a certain blonde who can sniff out potential drama like a shark’s attraction to blood, and Barbara Kean is definitely NOT going to miss out on this. Barbara had a plan. Simple in nature, but something that would force the two men to talk. Barbara sends them both a text, something about business, and gives them an address for a warehouse (and who could blame her if she made sure that it was possible stream the security footage from said warehouse before she decided on the location). The two men soon arrive — separately of course — and enter the warehouse, Oswald arriving around two minutes after Edward. They had only just caught sight of each other when they heard a click. Their heads whip around and they notice that, to their horror, someone — one of Barbara’s women, of course — had locked them in before they could even have a chance to escape. It was awkward, inevitably, but both of them know it would only be worse if they spent the unknown amount of time that they would be locked in here in silence trying to avoid each other. Ed slumps against the central column in the middle of the warehouse, sliding down it until he is seated on the ground, back against the column, legs outstretched. Taking the way that Ed was staring at him blankly as an invitation, Oswald takes a seat beside him on the floor — slowly, due to the bad leg — taking a few moments to get comfortable so that the pain would be minimal. It feels like ripping off a bandaid to do so (more like ripping off his own head, but still), but Oswald eventually manages to speak, although his voice comes out croaky and rough, his throat dry due to the bundle of nerves he was becoming.  
❝ We can’t fight any longer. It just makes things more painful than is necessary. I still care about you, Ed, ❞ Oswald mumbles, surprised when Edward gives a nod of agreement rather than protesting. He continues, ❝ I don’t really know what I’m doing. I don’t know what . . What we’re supposed to do from here. ❞  
With a slight defeated sigh, Ed, avoiding eye contact, slides his hand along to fit into Oswald’s, their fingers intertwining, before he admits, ❝ I’m not sure either. I don’t know what’s expected. What we’re supposed to do. So I suppose there’s no expectations to hold ourselves to. Isn’t it wonderful? ❞ There was still much work to be done, but Oswald and Ed have each other once again, and that’s all that matters.


End file.
